PROSTATE CANCER IS REACHING EPIDEMIC LEVELS IN THE U.S. THIS IS NO TIME FOR SQUEAMISHNESS

THREE YEARS AFTER HIS TRIUMPH IN THE GULF WAR, GENERAL H. Norman Schwarzkopf was feeling invincible. But in March 1994, uncomfortable with nagging tendinitis in one knee, he stopped by the MacDill Air Force Base Hospital in Tampa, Florida. While there, he decided to visit the base urologist for an exam. "I feel something not quite right," the doctor said, after making a routine rectal exam. "But if it's cancer, I can tell 90% of the time, and I don't think so."

Schwarzkopf, then 59, had reason to feel confident. He had recently undergone a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test and registered...